In many processing and manufacturing operations it may be desirable to associate a particular item or class of items with information that is unique to the item or to the class of items. Such information may include product identification, source, date manufactured or processed, and the like. For example, in many circumstances it may be desirable to maintain information regarding the source of each product and/or individual components of the product as well as various characteristics of the product that may be determined during processing.
Retention and associating such information may be particularly desirable in the food industry, where traceability and quality control may be important. For instance, in the meat processing industry it has become desirable to be able to track meat products such as primal cuts from the packaging of such primal cuts back to a carcass from which each primal cut was obtained. In some cases, it may be desirable to track the primal cuts to the lot of animals from which the carcass was obtained. Such tracking may permit a specific animal producer to be identified so that a specific food product may be linked to the animal from which it was derived.
The information may be recalled so that the food product may be tracked or traced to its origin. This may be useful, for example, in providing assurance to consumers or regulators that a product item, such as meat product, was actually derived from an animal source that was raised or processed under the stated conditions. For example, some consumers desire assurance that “organically grown” beef products were derived from cows that were actually raised by organic methods. Some regulators may want verification or certification that meat product items were derived from animals that were raised free from supplemental growth hormones, antibiotics, or biotechnological methods.
The ability to recall such information may also be useful to assure food safety and also to assist in product recall, if necessary. In some cases, information may permit tracing the destination of a suspect source of food or the origin of a suspect product item. Such traceability of food is increasingly important in view of harmful pathogens and viruses that have been associated with food product items derived from animal carcasses. For example, to minimize the effect of an outbreak of food poisoning caused by the presence of e. Coli bacteria in food product items, investigators seek to quickly determine the origin of the carcass from which the contaminated food product items were derived in order to effectively conduct product item recall. The same is true for cases of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) (commonly known as “mad cow disease”) and other contaminations.
In meat processing facilities it can be difficult to identify the actual source (e.g., the specific animals or animal carcasses) from which a particular food product, such as a consumer retail cut of meat, was derived. This difficulty is due, at least in part, because of the complexity and size of modem meat processing operations. For example, in many meat processing facilities a carcass is moved into a de-boning room where it is sectioned into primal cuts (e.g., hindquarter or forequarter). Each of the primal cuts may then be processed by multiple individuals that section and cut the carcass into increasingly smaller cuts. During such processing, the meat cuts may be moved between various work stations at which a worker performs a specific cut on each piece of meat in an assembly line-like process. Generally, the processing operations move at a high rate of speed so that a relatively large volume of meat cuts can be processed. As a result, meat cuts from multiple animals may be intermingled, thus making it difficult and expensive to tag or label each cut so that it can be traced to the source carcass from which it was derived.
Additionally, the processing facility may include conveyor belts that are used to move the meat cuts throughout the processing facility and between subsequent work stations. This can further increase the difficulty in tracking the meat cut to the source carcass from which it was derived. For instance, as the meat cut travels past a worker, the worker will have to quickly reach and pull pieces of meat off the conveyor. The worker will then section the meat cut into smaller meat cuts that are then placed back onto the conveyor where they are transported downstream for further processing. In some cases, the work may stack multiple meat cuts upon one another. As a result, meat cuts are being removed, cut, and redeposited onto the conveyor belt at a relatively high rate of speed, which further enhances the difficulties of linking a particular food product with information that is specific to the carcass from which it was derived.
Thus, there exists a need for a system and method that can be used to link a particular food product item with information that is referenced to the animal or original non-portioned food product from which the food product item was derived.